Thanks for watching today’s live stream. You can see the full show here at 8 pm.
Today, unemployment’s up and going higher. The President elect is proposing a one trillion dollar economic stimulus plan – but how to spend it? President elect Obama’s plan calls for public investment in infrastructure repair, green jobs to produce alternative energy and improve energy efficiency of federal buildings, and jobs to computerize medical records and rebuild classrooms. But the plan involves a lot of “tax cuts" too. Paul Krugman recently urged Obama to scrap the tax cuts and focus just on the investment. Sounds good to us. But even spending is not so simple.
To discuss Obama’s economic plan and possible alternatives are Jeff Madrick, author of The Case for Big Government and a recent article in the Nation, Beyond Rubinomics; C. Nicole Mason, Executive Director of the Women of Color Policy Network at NYU; and Miles Rapoport, the President of Demos.
3 Comments
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Laura Flanders
Advanced search
Blog Feed
Video Feed
Video Podcast
Audio Podcast
Madrick’s article from The Nation:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090112/madrick
If the stimulus is spent on domestic investment in infrastructure, energy alternatives and green investment, especially after so many years of decay and neglect, it will also create domestic jobs, often good ones, all the while improving the nation’s productivity.
Elizabeth Kolbert’s profile of Van Jones in the New Yorker:
Greening The Ghetto
http://www.newyorker.com/repor…..ct_kolbert
Krugman: Obama Should Scrap the Tax Cuts:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01…..ugman.html
Mr. Obama should scrap his proposal for $150 billion in business tax cuts, which would do little to help the economy. Ideally he’d scrap the proposed $150 billion payroll tax cut as well, though I’m aware that it was a campaign promise.
Money not squandered on ineffective tax cuts could be used to provide further relief to Americans in distress — enhanced unemployment benefits, expanded Medicaid and more. And why not get an early start on the insurance subsidies — probably running at $100 billion or more per year — that will be essential if we’re going to achieve universal health care?